


evo devo? ego devo

by charleybradburies



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: BAMF Women, Community: 1_million_words, Meta, Multi, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Rewrite, Rewriting Toxic Myths, Season/Series 03, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-05-02 19:57:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5261504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charleybradburies/pseuds/charleybradburies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"ok so i am pissed that paul died but imma boutta pull a john greenesque remark: i’m p sure that’s the first time i’ve seen a badass dude just go ahead and sacrifice himself for the girl he loves, without basically any deliberation and without trying to guilt trip her into understanding it." </p><p>slightly better version of an earlier analysis. </p><p>in addition, I have no idea how it ended up being precisely 1k words, lmao.</p>
            </blockquote>





	evo devo? ego devo

I’m pretty sure that’s the first time I’ve seen a badass dude just go ahead and sacrifice himself for the girl he loves, without basically any deliberation and without trying to guilt trip her into understanding it. 

there was no “Sarah, I love you, make sure this gets made right, I'm dying because I love you, okay? do you know that? I need you to know that before I go die and time is running out” which could have been expected. there’s a pattern in media: there’s a speech, and often an attempt at a kiss, and usually an argument where the girl tries to get him not to do it. but there wasn’t that. he just did it. he didn’t need to convince her that he was a hero. his dedication to her has been so deep that for a long time he’s been okay dealing with being considered a bad guy. and he knows that she’ll make up her own mind about it later, but there isn’t enough ‘later’ for her if he tries to convince her one way or the other. so he just fucking doesn’t. he’s far more concerned with her life than what she thinks of him, even though as of three minutes from then there won’t be any more chance for him to alter that opinion.

amazing job @ character growth, orphan black. amazing. when I started this show, Paul was basically a fuckboy. a relatively nice, occasionally intimidating, and considered rather sexy, fuckboy, sure, but one nonetheless. along the way he fucked some shit up, often by way of fucking. which isn’t rare for dudebro characters, and is overused. but he changed as that was happening. 

Sarah changed him, point blank. and (you’d think it’d be obvious, but tons of women have character arcs built around this!) it wasn’t her job to change him, to make him a better person, etc. he’s been a main supporting character, but a background character. he was complex, with his own motives and flaws and awesome points, but he’s the sacrificial lover. not a woman. 

Beth didn’t commit suicide because of her relationship with Paul, but because of her relationship with herself, with her life, with her existence, with a fully legitimized case of depression. like the majority of real-life suicidal people...but not the majority of suicidal and/or self-sacrificing characters, especially female characters. she didn’t lose track of herself just because of her boyfriend and because of a serious fuck-up at work, as though she’s secondary to other plots of the collective story of her and her sisters. 

and Paul, even though he became and remains majorly (ahem, because he’s a major...yeah, i'm not funny, that’s okay) important, he remained secondary. he’s a supporting character. he adds to their plot lines. the pieces of the plot where he was included never shifted to make him the most important figure.

even in his last and totally critical moment. he becomes a legit hero, but the focus remains on Sarah and on how that affects her story.

even with the Mark/Gracie plot! Mark is one of the freaking clones and that would be a really easy way to make Gracie super secondary. even less critical than she started out (which is pretty critical in the Helena plot line, but still) but no - the show is about women’s agency, and even though she’s not (technically) biologically related to the leda clones, who are the focus of the show, the fact that Mark is related to them gets used as a way to draw her further into the larger story. she rebels against her family, she finds herself with Sarah’s family. she has a crisis of faith, and a period of self-discovery, and after finding out that her own mother and family don’t really love her, she ends up with a family that’s willing to love her regardless of relation, a family that’s willing to put everything on the line for each other. a family wherein she can be reassured that she is okay and that is she allowed to stray from expectation. that she is more than the science she was created for. that she’s not an experiment, she’s not an object, she’s a person. and maybe she doesn't make the "right" choice in the end, or the one that benefits the clone club for whom we root, but that's okay, because she's, well, not an object but a person. people make choices, and mistakes, and clerical errors, and all sorts of shit gets stirred up. the part that's most important is that this wasn't about her following someone else's lead or orders or anything. ultimately, her decision is about what she wants.

Helena went back for Sarah, because sestras are the most important.

Felix went from ‘gay foster brother who makes cool jokes and helps make otherwise outlandish plans happen and is the conscience in the back of sarah’s head’ to ‘brother who is helping all his sestras and a few other people for good measure but may quite possibly tear the world apart to get his sister safe’

the major romantic plot this season? love triangle between three women. even with a character who’s refused a label, and gotten to state that her sexuality doesn’t define her and isn’t as important as the rest of who she is as a person.

even Rachel, who began as an antagonist, has now been shown to have more creativity, more self-love, more cleverness, more connection to her family, and less commitment to dyad. 

Alison is learning to channel her energy and desire and needs into spearheading a movement that is (potentially) less destructive than the path she’d taken before. she’s learning how to compromise without, well, compromising, and how to take her husband along with her, even though they sometimes disagree.

Orphan Black is the top of the line and lightyears ahead of most curves on women’s agency, and I’m both proud and impressed.

THE END (...for now)


End file.
